I believe I finally understood why some people have issues with Dawntrail

[LalafellDown]

Honestly it's a matter of creativity. Being creative here means being able to solve those issues with the tools at hand. If FFXVI proved something is that Yoshida might have leadership skills, but his game design philosophy is as you say: safe and dated.

Take a look at how GW2 deals with the leveling part of the story: You get to do MSQ segments every 10 levels, and the level cap is 80. There's plenty of quests in those segments but most of them have gameplay in them. How do you level up? You do Hearts, which are essentially static FATEs that can be done only once per player and essentially act as yellow quests, presenting lore in a "show, don't tell" style; you can also participate in Events (FATEs with other name) and most importantly, exploring and discovering stuff, meaning that filling the map is actually satisfying and fun.

This particular style of storytelling world have worked wonders for DT and for the whole "vacation and adventure" narrative that was promised. You can't tell me they couldn't have done the same with the resources they have.

That’s why I still play Guild Wars 2. Their “fate” system is fun because the combat and open world is fun. Exploring the world is a treat. NPCs are voiced even though by the same voice actors it’s still perfect. Each map has limitless exploration and achievements to find. All events or fates paint a story on the map. The story in Guild Wars 2 doesn’t waste your time. I can’t count how many times I’ve replayed the main story and expansions.

FF14 wastes your time by with its bare bones world. Its strengths are in boss fight and dungeons. They got fates right in Bozjan Southern Front why don’t they take time to implement that into the base game? I’d rather have 2 maps in an expansion if they were filled with the way GW2 filled it’s maps.

[koko-on-da-forumz]

The story in Guild Wars 2 doesn’t waste your time. I can’t count how many times I’ve replayed the main story and expansions.

I agree with everything you said except for this line.

IBS and SotO are slightly below Dawntrail in writing quality, just shorter (except the DRM festival in IBS), and there were absolutely wastes of time in every main story. It gets away with it because even though the writing is laughable and boring in many places, it's at least fun to play. It's not a movie, you're doing things, even while the story is playing out. And if you don't like the story, you don't have to do it, you can go explore on your own and its honestly a perfectly reasonable and fulfilling way to play.